Holiday Feast, Gastronomical Unit (Tetanus Farm)

This independent release has apparently been cooking for a long time; its CDBaby.com listing shows some of these tunes were recorded as far back as 1991 through 2004. Apparently this is a compilation, with a shifting cast of characters over time. "Egg Nog #5" opens the disc with a parody of Lou Bega's "Mambo" of the same number, a pretty good takeoff. "The Wassail Song" gets a hard rock/madrigal rendition in an odd time signature, "Twas the Night Before Christmas" is sung in an alt-folky arrangement, "A Pirate's 12 Days of Christmas" is the popular carol done in pirate-talk, and "We Three Kings" gets two lounge-jazz treatments, one vocal, one not. "Joy to the World" and "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" get noise-pop arrangements. There's an a cappella performance of "Crazy Night in Bethlehem" that sounds like a parody, but I don't know of what. They come up with the first version of "Dreidle Dreidle Dreidle" (Hanukkah Alert) to remind me of "Folsom Prison Blues," then follow that with "Tainted Nog," based on the Soft Cell hit. With 21 cuts, there's a bit too much distance between the best parts of the disc, but the good cuts are worth having. It's now available through Amazon, so click the disc cover. UPDATE: GU released a Vol. 2 with new material in 2008; will have to track that one down.